Chương 7
He looked down the corridor toward the ballroom. Guests were leaving in clusters, carrying gift bags and unanswered questions.
“I can’t marry you tomorrow or next month and pretend this is separate.”
“I am not asking you to pretend.”
“What are you asking?”
“Choose the life you were building before she walked onto that dock.”
He thought of Noah balancing a shoe on a leather chair.
“That life was built around something I didn’t know.”
“All lives are.”
“Not like this.”
Serena wiped her cheek with the heel of her hand.
“No,” she said. “Not like this.”
She walked toward the stairs without asking him to follow.
By midnight, the island had emptied of most guests. Julian’s mother remained in her villa. Mara occupied the business center with three phones, two laptops, and a plate of untouched food. Serena’s family departed on a chartered boat after her father informed Julian that no respectable person humiliated his daughter publicly and no serious man allowed an ex-wife to dictate his wedding.
Julian did not correct either assumption.
He returned alone to the glass chapel.
The white roses had begun to brown at their edges. Workers waited for instructions about whether to dismantle the installation. A cellist’s chair remained near the altar, one leg sinking slightly into the lawn.
Julian sat in it.
He had proposed to Serena in a restaurant closed for the evening, with musicians hidden behind a partition and a photographer waiting on the terrace. She had cried before he finished asking. The image had appeared in a magazine two weeks later.
He had proposed to Evelyn in his kitchen after she found the ring hidden inside a coffee mug he had forgotten he used every morning. She had held it up, laughing, and asked whether he was planning to marry himself.
He had said, I was waiting for the right time.
She had said, You’ve never recognized the right time in your life.
Then she kissed him.
The memory did not prove he still loved her. It proved he had once been someone who could be known well enough to be mocked without humiliation.
His phone vibrated.
The board chairman had called six times. The seventh message contained no greeting.
Call me before Asia opens.
Julian called.
Walter Chen answered on the first ring. “Tell me the child is not yours.”
“I don’t know yet.”
“That is not useful.”
“It is accurate.”
“Accuracy is not the only responsibility you have.”
Julian looked through the chapel walls at black water.
“No statement about Noah.”
“We can issue a privacy request.”
“No denial.”
“No confirmation either. The market will invent one.”
“Then let it.”
Walter exhaled. “You have a fiduciary duty.”
“I know.”
“The partnership announcement depends on trust. Today the world watched you discover a possible son at your canceled wedding.”
“I was there.”
“Were you aware of the child?”
“No.”
“Can you prove that?”
Julian thought of Serena’s signature on the certified letter.
“I can prove I created conditions that made it possible not to know.”
Walter was silent.
“That sentence never leaves your mouth in public,” he said.
“Maybe it should.”
“Do not become philosophical at a moment requiring counsel.”
“This isn’t philosophy.”
“It is guilt. Guilt is expensive when it speaks without a lawyer.”
Julian leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“What does the board want?”
“You removed from Monday’s announcement until the facts are established. Possibly a temporary leave.”
“For a private family matter?”
“For instability. For reputational risk. For the possibility that discovery will produce evidence of deception.”
“I did not deceive anyone.”
“You are about to marry a woman who may have intercepted notice of your child.”
“We are not getting married.”
Another silence.
“Have you ended the engagement?”
“I said the wedding is canceled.”
“That is not the same.”
“No.”
Walter’s voice softened by a fraction. “Julian, go to sleep. Do not post. Do not call the woman again tonight. Do not threaten anyone. Let counsel handle the test.”
“She has a name.”
“I know Evelyn’s name.”
“I meant Serena.”
Walter sighed. “That is precisely why you should sleep.”
Julian ended the call.
He remained in the chapel until a resort worker approached to ask whether the roses should be refrigerated overnight.
Julian looked at the thousands of flowers.
“What happens if they aren’t?”
“They wilt.”
“Let them.”
The worker nodded as though rich men regularly required floral mortality to make a point.
Julian slept for forty minutes.
At six, he found his mother drinking coffee on the terrace of her villa. She had removed her hat and makeup. Without them, she looked older and less defended.
She poured him a cup.
“You take it black now?”
“Yes.”
“You used to put enough milk in it to make soup.”
He sat across from her.
For several minutes they watched a groundskeeper repair a sprinkler head. The man dug carefully, found the pipe, and said something annoyed in Spanish when water sprayed his shirt.
Celeste stirred sugar into her coffee.
“I disliked Evelyn,” she said.
“I remember.”
“I thought she enjoyed making you uncomfortable.”
“She did.”
“That isn’t a quality mothers appreciate in wives.”
“She also stopped me from becoming unbearable.”
Celeste gave him a tired look. “Temporarily.”
He drank the coffee. It was too hot.
“When she tried to contact me,” he said, “did you know?”
“No.”
“Would you have told me?”
Celeste stared into her cup.
“At the time?”
“Yes.”
“I want to say I would have.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No. I might have believed she was trying to pull you back into the scandal. I might have called her lawyer. I might have done exactly what everyone else did and assumed someone more appropriate would deal with it.”
Julian looked toward the lawn.
“She had him early.”
“I heard.”
“She was alone.”
“She said she wasn’t.”
“I wasn’t there.”
“No.”
May you like
Celeste’s hands tightened around the cup.
“When you were eight,” she said, “your father missed the school play because he was in Chicago closing a deal. He sent six dozen roses to the auditorium. You asked why the flowers came if he didn’t.”
